Advice. We are all familiar with advice, whether giving it or receiving it. If you are over 30, you may have already followed some bad advice and suffered its results unhappily. It’s not unusual for a person starting in life after completing their schooling to ask a senior family member for advice to guide them in their life path. With your career based on long-term senior living, what advice would you give to elder friends or family members considering moving into a community? Are they curious about what life is like inside a retirement community? They want to know what isn’t printed in the brochures or advertisements.

Since they are seniors, they probably have an image of how their parents lived the last chapter of their lives. Would you think décor’ and floor plans are more important to them than location? How about rooftop restaurants and swimming pools? Social life? Events & activities?

If they plan to tour a few communities, would you advise them to seek out the food serving team and ask about the foods served. Is it farm-fresh, and are meals created and cooked in the community kitchen? Are the schedules for meals rigid or available throughout the day?  Would you tell them about social hours around the dining room tables where the conversation is shared, and newcomers are encouraged to join in? Remember, tell them to note if the food servers wear name tags and know the names of the people they serve at mealtimes. Are they greeted at the door? Tell them to notice the friendliness of employees they’ll meet in the hallways and common areas. Do they carry a pleasant demeanor as they carry trays? Tell them how foods connect people also in special ways on holidays and birthdays.

You can tell these older adults that it is in training, but when the team is well-trained, you won’t notice it because it comes so naturally. It’s in the combination of hospitality and healthcare. The two go hand in hand to form contented residents. Training educates, builds self-confidence, and forms healthy relationships with other employees and residents. Kind Dining♥ training sessions are designed for all employees that present meals, whether full-time, temporary, or part-timers, including nursing and health care, housekeeping departments, care staff, and managers. Our training program is experiential, meaning that we engage trainees by using action, reflection, application, and performance.

B♥ Kind Tip: Do you know what a difference you make by coming to work today?